Astrid Cabral - Spotlight on the Word
Astrid Cabral
Spotlight on the Word
Translated from Portuguese by
ALEXIS LEVITIN
Bilingual Edition
136 pages
May 6, 2026
ISBN 978-1-954218-48-2
Distributed by
Asterism Books (US)
Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
ASTRID CABRAL is a leading Brazilian poet and environmentalist who grew up in Manaus, on the Amazon River. She has authored twenty volumes of poetry and received more than a dozen literary awards in Brazil and her work has been widely anthologized. She is also the translator of Thoreau’s Walden into Portuguese. English translations have been published in the collections Cage (Host Publications) and Gazing Through Water (Aliform Publishing), and in numerous magazines, including The Amazonian Literary Review, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, The New York Times, and Two Lines. Spotlight on the Word is her third book to be published in English translation.
ALEXIS LEVITIN, a translator for half a century, has published works from Brazil, Portugal, and Ecuador. His 50 books include Clarice Lispector’s Soulstorm and Eugénio de Andrade’s Forbidden Words, both from New Directions, as well as five collections of poetry by the leading Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão, and twelve collections by Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade. He has also worked extensively with Ecuadorian poets, including Ana Minga, Santiago Vizcaino, Carmen Vascones, and Sonia Manzano. He has held Fulbright positions at the universities of Porto and Coimbra in Portugal, The Catholic University in Guayaquil, and the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.
PRESS
Astrid Cabral
Spotlight on the Word
Translated from Portuguese by
ALEXIS LEVITIN
In her late-career examination of language, poetry, and song, renowned Brazilian poet and environmentalist Astrid Cabral focuses on the mystery and elusiveness of the very building blocks of her endeavor.
Spotlight on the Word, Cabral’s third book in English translation, is a far-ranging contemplation of the poet’s endless endeavor to create meaning with the fragile and somehow inadequate material of her craft. For Cabral, what is expressed “knows nothing of who we really are,” and “the word in the head” is a “secret hidden star.” Her exploration of the writer’s relationship to language leads to reverent reflections on silence—what Keats might have been intimating with “negative capability” or painters with their “negative space”—suggesting an acceptance of the paradoxical nature of words which both define and limit, which sometimes blossom, but often do not fly. It is a writer’s testament to both her love and frustration in the eternal struggle to wrest from silence an inkling of meaning through the medium of the word.
“Astrid Cabral’s multi-layered exploration of language, specifically as it lives in poetry, rings full and rich in this artfully rendered translation by Alexis Levitin.” —Sheryl St. Germain
“In clear and chiseled language, humble but unapologetic, Astrid Cabral asserts the importance of both the poem and the poet throughout this book. Indeed, both silence and dialogue are dependent on the pair poem-and-poet, which provide the necessary pre-condition for life itself, through the structure of the page. The world is strange and bewildering and Cabral's words refuse to tame it, even as they reveal the subjectivity within objects themselves. Lucidly translated by Alexis Levitin these poems are important reminders of mortality, abundance, and the shared universe.” —Leonard Schwartz
“Spotlight on the Word moves keenly within and amongst enigmas of word and world. An intimacy is established that lessens the gap between ephemeral presences and their representation in language. The fulcrum of these meticulously calibrated poems is a holism that arises through contemplative practice and its inverse—worlding considerations simultaneously at play in this tensile, transformational work. Consciousness flourishes in this riveting, vital collection of poems.” —Brenda Iijima
“Astrid Cabral’s most recent collection in English hums with investigations and declarations about poetry in poetry. The poem is ‘a fruit / found on no tree,’ she declares. This a writer for whom ‘the word is passage from the abstract / to the vicariously real’ and for whom ‘abstractions’ are necessarily both ‘living fish’ and ‘kingdoms of quicksand.’ Poetry is born not only of the mind but also of embodied experience: ‘In my kind of poetry, the word / springs from the ground like a thistle, / it’s a lion that roars and bleeds.’ Cabral manages to be both fervent and playful in her considerations of poetry—and of the ‘gag’ of silence. And she’s extremely fortunate in her translator, Alexis Levitin, who not only matches her passion and inventiveness, but possesses an impressive talent for musicality—which is no mean feat, moving from the fluidity of a Romance language to English.” —Ellen Doré Watson
“Astrid Cabral arises like an extraordinary force…. In a country in which women are producing excellent poetry, Astrid manages to stand out as one of the most powerful revelations of recent years for her very personal tone and her at times raw and ironic thematics.” —Fausto Cunha
“The word, in her hands, is ‘soul made flesh’ and as a result has the weight of critical thought and the lightness of a comprehensive vision in permanent dialogue with the threat of silence.” —Marcus Vinicius Quiroga
BIOS
ASTRID CABRAL is a leading Brazilian poet and environmentalist who grew up in Manaus, on the Amazon River. She has authored twenty volumes of poetry and received more than a dozen literary awards in Brazil and her work has been widely anthologized. She is also the translator of Thoreau’s Walden into Portuguese. English translations have been published in the collections Cage (Host Publications) and Gazing Through Water (Aliform Publishing), and in numerous magazines, including The Amazonian Literary Review, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, The New York Times, and Two Lines. Spotlight on the Word is her third book to be published in English translation.
ALEXIS LEVITIN, a translator for half a century, has published works from Brazil, Portugal, and Ecuador. His 50 books include Clarice Lispector’s Soulstorm and Eugénio de Andrade’s Forbidden Words, both from New Directions, as well as five collections of poetry by the leading Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão, and twelve collections by Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade. He has also worked extensively with Ecuadorian poets, including Ana Minga, Santiago Vizcaino, Carmen Vascones, and Sonia Manzano. He has held Fulbright positions at the universities of Porto and Coimbra in Portugal, The Catholic University in Guayaquil, and the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.
PRESS
Bilingual Edition
136 pages
May 6, 2026
ISBN 978-1-954218-48-2
Distributed by
Asterism Books (US)
Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
